There will be an announcement soon that Newcastle’s 21-year-old right-back Harrison Ashby will move to Swansea on loan for the coming season and wear the number 30 shirt for The Swans. the same number he wears on Tyneside.

That will be a good move for Ashby as the lad needs games to become a better and more experienced player at Newcastle.

Newcastle have seemed willing to let Ashby leave and that begs the question of whether things are looking up for our long summer pursuit of Southampton 20-year-old right-back Tino Livramento.

The recruitment team at Newcastle are meticulous and would hardly let Ashby leave unless someone else was coming in to fill the gap.

We do of course have Emil Krafth coming back from an ACL injury and he was outstanding for us in the second half of the season before last, when Kieran Trippier was out injured.

The Swedish International played so well in that famous run-in to that season when we escaped relegation and finished in 11th place.

In our final 18 games of the season from 22nd January, we won 12 and drew one for a massive 37 points, – unbelievable given we had only 7 points (7 draws) from our first 14 games.

Did I say it was just unbelievable!

And news today that Tino Livramento is not expected to travel for the Saints’ first Championship game at Sheffield Wednesday tomorrow night.

So maybe we will soon have a breakthrough in our pursuit of the very talented right back who is highly thought of by Newcaste’s Sporting Director Dan Ashworth.

Dan is nothing if not persistent when he wants to sign a player.

News is that the Saints want around £50M for their player and Newcastle recently had a £30M bid turned down so perhaps something closer to £40M can be agreed to – by both clubs?

We will have to wait and see, but it’s clear Newcastle think this lad can become an excellent player for us if we can get him in and under the coaching of Eddie Howe.

And in fact as I finished the article news is coming through from a number of sources that Newcastle have indeed agreed a deal for Livramento, who was very keen to join our club.

Boom ? – so happy with this deal. Kids an absolute beast #nufc https://t.co/AEhwkwbsoE

— Gianfranco Shola (@GianfrancoShoIa) August 3, 2023

Sky Sports have just reported that a deal has been agreed between Newcastle and the Saints for Tino Livramento.

The agreed to fee is somewhere between £35M and £40M, so he doesn’t come cheap.

And that means that Sandro Tonali (£52M), Harvey Barnes (£38M) and now Tino Lavramento (let’s say £40M) have cost Newcastle around £130M this summer.

What do you think about all of this?

Comments are always welcome.